Thursday, May 15, 2008

Lori Drew Indicted in Megan Meier MySpace Suicide Case



The infamous mother in the Megan Meier Myspace Suicide case, Lori Drew, has been indicted by a Los Angeles federal grand jury on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain private information.

Drew's indictments come as a surprise to many as the local authorities where the case transpired, in O'Fallon, Missouri, and the FBI, declined to press charges after investigating the Megan Meiers Myspace case.

Back in December, St. Charles County prosecutor Jack Banas announced his office would not file charges against Drew because she hadn't "broken any laws".

Drew had admitted in a police report that she had "set up" a fake MySpace page to "monitor" what her daughter's ex-friend, Megan Meier, was posting about her daughter on Megan's MySpace page. Drew later recanted, claiming she wasn't involved, that the police report was filled with errors.

Banas had said that the St. Charles County prosecutor's office couldn't "prove" that Drew or Grills had meant their messages to be a form of "harassment" even though Megan's mother claims the messages from the fake 16-year-old "Josh" had grown increasingly mean, culminating in a final message posted the day Megan hanged herself in her bedroom closet, that the "world would be a better place without you".

Megan had set up a MySpace page with the permission of her parents. She had told her parents about "Josh", a boy on MySpace who claimed he was new to her area. For weeks the "two" exchanged messages until shortly before Megan was to celebrate her 14th birthday.

It wasn't until after Megan's death that her parents were informed by a neighbor that "Josh" wasn't a 16-year-old boy but a concoction made up by their neighbor, a woman in her forties with a daughter who was a former friend of Megan's, Lori Drew.

Drew claims she wasn't involved even though she filed a police report stating she was instrumental in devising the web page as a way to "keep tabs" on what "Megan was saying about her daughter". Drew then claimed it was all her 17-year-old employee, Ashley Grill's idea, that Drew had nothing to do with it.

DBKP has been following the MySpace Suicide story and finds it highly unlikely that Grills, an employee of Drew, would take it on herself to create a fake persona on MySpace in order to chat up a 13-year-old neighbor girl she was not acquainted with. Megan had been Drew's daughter's off-and-on again friend for years.

Grills testified before a Los Angeles federal grand jury that it was Drew who suggested creating the fake page but that it was Grills who set it up. Grills also testified that Drew helped write some of the messages from "Josh".

Megan took her life in November of 2006, it wasn't until January 2008 that a Los Angeles federal grand jury began issuing subpoenas in what is now known as the Megan Meier MySpace Suicide Case.

Read more Megan Meier MySpace Suicide: Lori Drew Indicted at DBKP.com

By LBG

Image - Evil Wine
Source - LA Times - L.A. Grand Jury Issues subpoenas in Web Suicide Case
Source - ABC News - No Charges Filed in MySpace Suicide
Source - MSNBC - Mom Indicted in MySpace Suicide Case


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